According to a report titled, The Next Google is Google,” Google could end up paying Apple $1 billion to remain the default search engine on the iPhone. According to this article from TechCrunch, for every dollar of revenue Google makes on iOS due to advertising and data collection, Apple gets 75 cents from Google. As long as iOS sales keep growing, this number is going to increase in the future. With Microsoft pushing to make Bing the default search engine, Apple has received more and more money from Google over the years. But how much is too much? The end of the Google-Apple deal could be near. If Google was no longer the default search engine on the iPhone, how would it affect local business owners?

Currently, the iPhone has about 30 million users while Google’s Android has about 50 million. Although, Google would still be the default search engine for the 50 million Android users, that still leaves millions of users that may turn to other search engines like Bing or Yahoo if the iPhone’s default search engine is replaced. How will this affect local business owners?

Although we can only speculate on how it would affect local business owners, it’s clear that they would have to put more emphasis on expanding their local presence in other places beyond Google, (which is something local businesses should do anyway). This means making sure they are found in other directories, particularly Yahoo Local, Yelp and Facebook. Yelp and Facebook both have popular iPhone apps that more users are increasingly turning to in order to find local business information.

Even without Google being the default search engine, iPhone users will still be able to utilize the Google Maps app, a relatively new app that quickly became one of the most popular apps in the Apple Store upon its release. This means that just because Google Maps won’t be easily accessible from the iPhone’s internet browswer, Safari, users will still be able to search for local businesses from the actual Google Maps app.

Local business owners should make sure their Google+ Local Listing is claimed, verified and optimized as well as submit their business information to popular local directories, including Yahoo Local, Yelp and Facebook in order to increase their presence online. It’s also important to business owners to make sure their website is mobile friendly. The easier you make it for potential customers to find information about your business or contact your business, the more likely they are to come to your store location.

Local Splash is excited to announce that we have been featured in this week’s Orange County Business Journal. Check out the article about the local companies that made the Deloitte Tech Fast 500 list below.

According to a recent survey by Balihoo, 47.3% of national brands plan to invest more money in local search in 2013 than in 2012. Forty-four percent said they will invest the same amount in 2013 as they did in 2012.

The companies reported that most of that budget will go to mobile local marketing. In fact over 34% expect to use mobile as a major marketing technique in 2013, up 2% from last year.

Other interesting findings:

Companies that earn an average revenue of $100 million to $250 million are more likely to use social media more often

87% of national brands are not properly represented on local affiliate websites

Only 8.6% of companies said they will spend less on local marketing in 2013 than they did in 2012